Félix Auger-Aliassime interview

Montreal tennis star Félix Auger-Aliassime is taking 2024 by storm

We connected with Félix as he prepared for his Paris Olympics run and return home for the Canadian Open and 24th birthday celebration.

We’ve never seen a homegrown tennis talent quite like Félix Auger-Aliassime.

At 23, his impressive career highs, his always cool demeanor on the court and his truly remarkable level of sportsmanship has made him a consistently solid player to watch — and being a hometown hero doesn’t hurt.

Born in Montreal to a Québécoise mother and a tennis-instructor father from Togo, and raised in the Quebec City suburb of L’Ancienne-Lorette, Auger-Aliassime started playing at 4 and joined Tennis Canada in Montreal at 14. Following an impressive career as a junior and challenger, where he broke a series of ranking records, Auger-Aliassime became a fixture on the ATP Tour in the late 2010s.

2021 and 2022 were momentous years for Félix: In 2021, he hired Rafael Nadal’s uncle and former coach Toni Nadal; he beat Roger Federer in the second round of the Halle Open; he reached his first Grand Slam quarterfinal at Wimbledon, and his first semifinal at the U.S. Open. In 2022, he won four singles titles, won both the ATP Cup and the Davis Cup for Canada alongside his friend Denis Shapovalov, became the youngest player to force Rafael Nadal to a five-set match (in the French Open round of 16) and achieved his career-high ranking of No. 6.

2023 was a tough season for Auger-Aliassime, who fell precipitously in the rankings as he dealt with a lingering knee injury. After a rough start to the 2024 season, his situation improved in the spring, when he reached the final round and made the news in the Madrid Open following a bizarre series of retirements by his rivals. Three opponents in a row dropped out either before or during matches, leaving Félix visibility stunned, and notably far more comforting to his fellow players than celebratory.

“It’s crazy. I don’t know if it’s ever happened to a player before,” he said after his semi-final. “It’s kind of a weird situation to be in on my part. It’s never happened to me in my career so far, a withdrawal or a walkover or retirement of this sort, and back-to-back like this. I couldn’t believe what was happening when I saw his back locked on him. I feel really bad for him. I’ve had injuries myself, and we can all imagine how it feels to come out on a night like this, hoping to win, to go through, having a battle with your opponent, and not being able to play. I have a lot of empathy for Jiri (Lehecka), and I can’t do anything but try to prepare for Sunday.”

Auger-Aliassime eventually lost the Madrid Open to Andrey Rublev — whose visible illness at the beginning of the match fuelled speculation that Félix might win the title in yet another walkover. A month later, he reached the fourth round of the French Open in June, his best Grand Slam performance in a year.

At press time, Félix was back at Roland Garros, having just beaten Germany’s Maximilian Marterer in the second round in the Paris Olympics — in straight sets, losing only one game during the match. Though he told Cult MTL that Wimbledon is his favourite Grand Slam (“for obvious reasons”), he seems to be as suited to clay courts as he is to grass.

“In Canada, we don’t grow up on clay,” he recently told the Toronto Star. “I came as a teenager quite a lot to Europe to play on these conditions. It suits me. It’s a surface where you need to be athletic even more than other surfaces. There’s a lot of movement and jumping, you need to hit the ball a little bit harder for it to kick off the ground. I think I have the attributes physically to play on this surface.”

Of course, Auger-Aliassime came up on hard courts (and has curiously won the bulk of his titles at indoor tournaments). Whatever happens at Roland Garros, he’ll be back on familiar ground in Montreal for the National Bank Open (Aug. 3 to 12), where he’ll start out in the night match on Aug. 7, the day before his 24th birthday. As he shared with us in the last week of July, according to Félix, there’s no place like home.

“At this stage in my career, I cherish any opportunity to come home and reconnect with the place and people who have helped my career become what it is today. I miss the simple things of hearing the Québécois speak as soon as I arrive in the airport, spending time with family that I don’t see as often, stopping by my favourite cafés after practice, going to my favourite restaurant le Filet, training on the same courts I did as a young teenager, and so on.

“Stepping onto centre court in Montreal brings a unique feeling that I can’t replicate during any other stops on tour. I’m grateful for the memories that have been made there and dream of creating even brighter ones in the years ahead.”

Félix Auger-Aliassime
Félix Auger-Aliassime on the cover of Cult MTL’s Aug. 2024 issue.

Sportsmanship, gratitude and humility are all traits that are easy to recognize in Auger-Aliassime, along with generosity and commitment. Since 2020, as part of the #FAAPPOINTSFORCHANGE program, he’s donated $5 for every point he’s won, an amount tripled by Indian Wells tournament sponsors BNP Paribas ($15 per point), to benefit children’s education in his father’s native Togo.

“With this project, I give meaning to my career. Tennis is an incredible sport that teaches me many values, including hard work, perseverance and humility. I carry these values with me when I leave the tennis court, in order to have a positive impact as a citizen of the world. I contribute to the future of young generations, especially the most disadvantaged, and I am happy to be able to do this through tennis.” ■

Félix Auger-Aliassime will play the night match at the National Bank Open in Montreal on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 7 p.m., $95. This article was originally published in the Aug. 2024 issue of Cult MTL.


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